Value Innovation projects 2022

• Post by: Marco Bertoni
• 1st February 2023
• 1 Comment

MT2568 Value Innovation is a Master Programme course that digs deep into the Design Thinking methodology, asking students to work with the development of product and services in collaboration with selected external partners along the entire study period of 8 weeks.

In 2022, BTH partnered with the municipality of Karlskrona in the quest for innovative designs under the theme ‘sustainable tourism’. The design brief shared with the students at the beginning of the course highlighted the many challenges linked to the possibility of engaging visitor, local residents and companies in behaving sustainably when visting Karlskrona’s World Heritage Site (Örlogsstaden Karlskrona) and the Blekinge Archipelago biosphere reserve, taking action towards protecting and preserving both the natural and the cultural environment.

Three groups of students kicked-off the design activity by tackling the challenge of how to prevent tourists and citizens to abandon trash in the environment, going on to develop 3 complementary solutions under the theme ‘intelligent waste’.

Team 1 (Lions)

Team 1 (aka the Lions) was composed of Christian Elzouabi, Mattias Pogén, Simon Bååth, Samuel Nilsson. The project brought to the development of a Smart Bin solution that uses image recognition technology to award users with virtual points when recycling waste. The bins are easily located using geotagging and different amount of points are rewarded depending on the type of waste being recycled. These can be further spent in shops, cafés and other activities in the city of Karlskrona. The working prototype includes a camera, lighting, and ad-hoc software code in MATLAB to recognise different types of waste, with the goal of sorting them in different bins. An app prototype further demonstrates how points are collected and spent by the users.

Team 2 (Leopards)

Team 2 (aka the Leopards) was composed of Aghiad Mijel, Alex Fredin, Daniel Magnusson, Gustav Åsard, Kevin Ha and Omar Abasi. The project identified early on the “tourists with children” persona as main target group for the solution, exploiting storytelling as a way to motivate people to behave sustainably and recycle their waste. The pointy design of the top is intended to discourage people to leave the trash on the bin, instead than inside it, while the coolers are chosen to melt with the surrounding environment. The final prototype is composed of a waste bin that, after being activated by throwing trash into it, narrates the story of Rosenbom (a popular character in Karlskrona) while displaying its story through images on a rotating disk.

Team 3 (Tigers)

Team 3 (aka the Tigers) was composed of Ruben Althini, Samuele Zak Zoppi, Sven Lackenbauer Odin, Simone Camotti, Emil Larsson and Stefano Palazzi. The project exploited gamification as a way to stimulate citizens and tourists to behave responsibly. QR codes strategically positioned around the town and in the archipelago are used to invite individuals in taking part in a quiz, challenging friends and family members to answer questions related to Karlskrona, its cultural heritage and its natural environment. This fun solution has a pedagogical content as well, being linked to a responsible travel pledge, which helps educate tourists and simultaneously encourage them to behave kindly to the places they’re visiting. The quiz prototype can be reached scanning the QR code in the picture below.

What does the project partner say?

We interviewed Sarah Kristoffersen, project manager at Karlskrona Municipality – and contact point for the 3 projects – to know more about the added value of collaborating with students and how the results will be followed up: “We are very impressed with how the students have carried out this assignment and the results achieved are excellent. It has been inspiring to follow the process from brainstorming to prototypes and has illustrated three different but complementary ways of working with educating people in being more sustainable regarding litter/ trash. All three prototypes have a huge potential, and the students research, results and input will be included in our report to the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth in our Project on Sustainable Tourism in Blekinge’s World Heritage site and Biosphere reserve. We are extremely pleased that the prototypes are so interesting and almost ready to be tested in our world heritage and biosphere environments. We look forward to a continued collaboration with BTH including more student projects.”

Form more information, contact the course coordinator Marco Bertoni at marco.bertoni@bth.se